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Quite interesting that this was one of the factors for American entry into WWI. That and the intercepted communications between Germany and Mexico. America see

Quite interesting that this was one of the factors for American entry into WWI. That and the intercepted communications between Germany and Mexico. America seemed quite isolationist at the time. It wouldn't be hard to imagine a world where they never entered into either World War if they weren't given a good cassus belli. As I am not American, can anyone fill me in on what the high school kids are taught about their entry into WWI and WWII?

gostsamo 6y ago
Add to the list the sinking of Lusitania, I think.
CapriciousCptl 6y ago
WW2 was straightforward— Japan attacked Pearl Harbor and (afterwards) declared war on the US before the US declared war in response. WW1 it’s harder to point to one thing but the sinking of the Lusitania and the Zimmerman telegram were taught.
- castratikron 6y ago
  US had declared war on Japan but not Germany. Germany declared war on US a few days later.
  - mindcrime 6y ago
    My memory of the details is a little fuzzy, but Great Britain played a role in all that as well. As I recall, they had a mutual defense pact of some sort with the US, to the point that they declared war on Japan before the US did, in response to the Pearl Harbor attacks. The US then declared war on Japan shortly afterwards. The Germans apparently saw all of this as "the writing on the wall" and realized that US entry into the war in Europe was inevitable, and so declared war on the US. Something like that anyway. It's been a while since I read up on all of this.
    - sb057 6y ago
      Japan declared war and invaded Asian British colonies simultaneously with the attack on Pearl Harbor. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japanese_declaration_of_war_on_the_United_States_and_the_British_Empire https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japanese_declaration_of_war_on...
      - mindcrime 6y ago
        OK, I found the bit I was remembering: The UK actually declared war on Japan nine hours before the U.S. did, partially due to Japanese attacks on Malaya, Singapore, and Hong Kong, and partially due to British Prime Minister Winston Churchill's promise to declare war "within the hour" of a Japanese attack on the United States.[1] I had forgotten the part about the attacks on Malaya, etc. [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Attack_on_Pearl_Harbor#Aftermath https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Attack_on_Pearl_Harbor#Afterma...
    - valuearb 6y ago
      Hitler had a mutual defense pact with Japan. But he didn’t have to declare war on the US. It was one of his greatest blunders. Had the US not declare war on Germany, or delayed it for a year or two, Germany might have been able to finish off the Russians and cement their control of Europe.
- forgotpwd9000 6y ago
  Japan also invaded the phillipines, which was a US territory at the time. FDR was concerned that the American people wouldn't support entering the war if he focused his speech on all the US territories. He specifically mentions Pearl Harbour, since Hawaii was viewed as more apart of the US, also Hawaii had a majority white population. I'm only really scratching the surface, but the US just never likes saying we're an imperialist nation who's colonies were being invaded by Japan. It's still the argument used to deny statehood (or independence) for Puerto Rico
  - JackFr 6y ago
    The sentiment for neutrality in the US was dramatically higher than Americans typically care to remember. Months prior to Pearl Harbor US destroyers in the Atlantic were engaging (and in one case being sunk by German U-boats.) That was considered by many to be a reason to get rid of Roosevelt rather than fight with Germany.
- vkou 6y ago
  But why did Japan attack Pearl Harbor? Because of the American oil embargo against them (Started on August 1st, 1941. 80% of Japan's oil was imported from the US, and as of December 1941, they had three months worth of supplies left.) Why was there an oil embargo? Because FDR wanted them to stop their war in China. (Which started in 1931, by the way.) Pearl Harbor did not just magically appear out of the blue, with no prior context. In both the precipitating event (Peace talks over aggression in China), and the triggering event (Surprise attack on Pearl Harbour) Japan grossly misjudged FDR's willingness to employ the nuclear option. (Pun intended. And yes, I know that it was Truman who ordered the bomb to be dropped.)
  - magicsmoke 6y ago
    The oil embargo had much more to do with Japan marching into French Indochina. Like you said, Japan invaded Manchuria in 1931, and the US took no action. In 1937, Japan starts invading the rest of China after the Marco Polo bridge incident, and the US still did nothing even after Japanese bombers hit the USS Panay on the Yangtze river. December 1937, Nanjing Massacre, again no direct action from the US. (But plenty of funding to the ROC and supplies being shipped into China through French Indochina, part of the reason why Japan would later occupy this area) The US didn't start limiting oil and scrap iron shipments to Japan until 1940, after supplying a decade of Japanese military adventures. Why 1940? In 1940, Nazi Germany defeats France and the Vichy French government allows Japan to occupy French Indochina. Suddenly, Japan controls the world's main source of rubber, is within striking distance of the Dutch East Indies and its oil supply which the UK needs to hold out against Germany, and has occupied a western colony.
DiffEq 6y ago
I was taught about all three (Black Tom, Lusitania and Zimmerman)...and there was a rather large contingent of people that wanted to go to war much sooner, just as there was in WW II, but due to the isolationist culture it was only overcome due to these pretty direct attacks.
- mzs 6y ago
  Same, I think GP should know that curriculum is varied across the US. In my case it was IL circa '90.
NewOrderNow 6y ago
For WWI, the Zimmerman notes were seen as the reason for entry into war in my High School.
- Shared404 6y ago
  This is what was emphasized at my school as well, with the Lusitania getting honorable mention. This is about 3-4 years ago. EDIT: One other thing of note is that what is taught will vary state by state, as they each set their own curriculum's. I went to high school in Texas.
  - NewOrderNow 6y ago
    12 years ago for me. California
peruvian 6y ago
Eh, we took over half of Mexico in the 19th century and made the Philippines and Puerto Rico pseudo-colonies a decade or so before WWI. I would say we didn't want to get into continental European wars, perhaps due to capital/business interests vs. being isolationist.
- adventured 6y ago
  You make it sound like the US woke up one day, became expansionist and sought to conquer the Philippines or Puerto Rico. The US defeated Spain in a war of Spain's making, and the US then received those territories as a settlement because Spain lost. The US ended colonial dominance of the Philippines and set them free to become an independent nation beginning in 1934. And Puerto Rico? They persistently seek to remain attached to the US. No wonder: their GDP per capita is double that of Chile and triple that of Mexico or Argentina for contrast. Amusingly, it's even higher than Spain's GDP per capita. Similarly the US didn't wake up one day and decide to invade Mexico as an expansionist policy. Mexico started a war with the US and lost, some of their territory was ceded because of their mistake in starting that war. Historically it's a bad idea to start wars with vastly more powerful neighbors, it has commonly ended in losing territory. Despite being a superpower for seven decades, the US has maintained stable borders with its neighbors. It could have spent the last seven decades taking territory in North America, and it has chosen not to behave that way. For example the US fairly splits the Gulf of Mexico with Mexico, politely following reasonable border lines rather than going by who is more powerful; contrast that with what's going on in the South China Sea.
  - jcranmer 6y ago
    > The US defeated Spain in a war of Spain's making The Spanish-American War was driven more by the US political intrigue than Spain's. The USS Maine's explosion in Havana harbor (where it had been sent to help protect US interests in the Cuban War of Independence) drove American paranoia about Spanish interference, which led to the US declaring war to deprive Spain of its remaining territories in the Americas. > The US ended colonial dominance of the Philippines The US Pacific detachment happened to be near Manila when war broke out, handily destroyed the Spanish fleet there, and then assisted the ongoing Philippine revolt. And then took the Philippines as a colony, suppressing the revolution they had just been supporting not a few months earlier. They only started granting the Philippines its independence in the 1930s. While American colonization was arguably more benign than other countries, don't kid yourself that it wasn't colonization, and don't kid yourself that it was done in accordance with the wishes of the local populations. > Similarly the US didn't wake up one day and decide to invade Mexico as an expansionist policy. Mexico started a war with the US American settlers started squatting in the region of Texas. When Mexico tried to assert its authority over Texas, the region rebelled and formed an independent country, which Mexico objected to but did accept to some degree as a de facto resolution. However, the Republic of Texas tried to claim as much land as it could--ideally as far as the Pacific Ocean, but usually cited as the Rio Grande border. After the US annexed Texas, it took the Rio Grande as the notional border, and moved its troops into the disputed region to provoke Mexico, taking the territory of Alta California as its prize in the ensuing conflict. Functionally speaking, it's actually not entirely unlike the Russian annexation of the Crimea in modern terms, if the Ukraine were to go to war against Russia's violation of its territory.
unishark 6y ago
The US returned to isolationism after the war. I think the powers of the president are the real driver for such intervention. We always have interests on one side more than the other, and they can't resist meddling. FDR flagrantly took sides in WW2 which probably made getting pulled into that war inevitable.
- rmrfstar 6y ago
  > which probably made getting pulled into that war inevitable As Japan saw it, the US oil embargo forced Japan to choose between war or a humiliating capitulation to US demands. [1] The major takeaway is: never force a near-peer to choose between humiliation and war. Aristocrats are insulated from the true cost of war, and will always prefer it. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Events_leading_to_the_attack_on_Pearl_Harbor https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Events_leading_to_the_attack_o...
  - choward 6y ago
    I thought this was deliberate though. FDR thought entering the war was the right thing to do but knew it wouldn't be liked by the American people. So he provoked Japan to force the US to enter the war.
    - magicsmoke 6y ago
      Jame's Bradley's The China Mirage is a pretty good book on this. FDR didn't want to get into a war with Japan, and in his oil embargoes/financial asset freezes he left loopholes that would allow Japan to continue buying oil while convincing his political base that he was being tough on Japan. The bill was drafted in a way where Japan could submit requests to the state department and treasury to unfreeze enough assets to continue buying oil. However, FDR's assistant secretary of state, Dean Acheson, took a harder line on Japan and when FDR was meeting with Churchill in Newfoundland in August 1941 and Japanese tankers arrived for their preapproved oil shipments, Acheson refused to unfreeze Japanese funds so they could buy the oil and turned FDR's bill into an actual embargo.
  - valuearb 6y ago
mindcrime 6y ago
As I am not American, can anyone fill me in on what the high school kids are taught about their entry into WWI and WWII? Hmm... I've spent a modest amount of time studying WWI and WWII history on my own over the years since school, so it's a little hard for me to disambiguate what I remember from way back then, from things I've learnt more recently. But as best as I can recall, what we were taught in high school was basically: (main) reason for entering WWI: • the sinking of the Lusitania (main) reason for entering WWII: • the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor I don't think I learned about the Zimmerman telegram in high-school, or even college. I think I learned about that later. And I had never heard of the Black Tom Explosion until today.
- fosco 6y ago
  I was taught the main reason for WWI was the Zimmermann Note[ 0] but wikipedia has a pretty good article on this [1]. I wonder if I were school age now if I'd research teacher comments and ask more questions in school... education and being a teacher really is changing. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_entry_into_World_War_I https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_entry_into_World_War_... [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zimmermann_Telegram https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zimmermann_Telegram
- jcranmer 6y ago
  The main reason for WWI is usually given as German's unrestricted submarine warfare. The sinking of the Lusitania in 1915 (note the year!) prompted US complaints, which caused the Germans to make major changes in their submarine warfare rules. In 1917, Germany changed the rules again to resume unrestricted submarine warfare, and this was the casus belli that Wilson cited. Germany's move to resume unrestricted submarine warfare was a calculated gambit to try to push Britain, and then France, out of the war before the US could join the European theater. As part of this gambit, they tried to enlist Mexico as an ally to distract the US, hence the Zimmerman telegram--which was such a perfect note to enrage the US public that it was actually widely suspected to be a British intelligence plant. And we did cover all of this in both 7th and 11th grade US history in my school district.
  - 6y ago
jbay808 6y ago
In Canada we are taught that due to their isolationism, the US had a very small role in WW1, with for example, a late entry and fewer combat casualties than Canada despite a much larger population. We are taught about the Zimmerman telegram and the Lusitania being the main triggers. We are taught that the US remained isolationist after that, being very reluctant to enter WW2 and in the end only joining about 2 years after it "started". For Commonwealth countries, the war began with Germany's invasion of Poland in 1939. For the Czech Republic, it started in 1938. In parts of Asia, the war began even before that, with Japanese aggression. For some countries in the middle east, WW1 never really ended. But we can all agree that the Americans were pretty late to the party and it's weird when you hear them say that "WW2 began toward the end of 1941 with Pearl harbor", at which point much of Europe was already being crushed by the Nazis.
- JackFr 6y ago
  Between Dunkirk and Barbarossa Britain stood alone against Germany. Churchill’s “Blood, sweat, toil and tears” speech is a speech from a guy who is losing badly and has no illusions about it. The smart money on both sides of the Atlantic said it was hopeless and only an idiot wouldn’t sue for peace. Despite his many shortcomings, Churchill’s leadership was astonishing.
- fiftyacorn 6y ago
  I would also regard ww1 as a European war in the early stages so no need for the us to enter the war
  - jbay808 6y ago
    So would you say that it remained a European war until Canada joined, or until the US joined?
    - fiftyacorn 6y ago
      I would include Canada, Australia and New Zealand as part of European was as part of commonwealth and empire
dysfunction 6y ago
One other factor I was taught (as an American) that I don't see mentioned here was the Russian Revolution. The nominally-democratic provisional government allowed the pro-entry camp to frame the war as democracies vs. authoritarian empires, they could pitch US entry as defending democracy.

gostsamo 6y ago

Add to the list the sinking of Lusitania, I think.

CapriciousCptl 6y ago

WW2 was straightforward— Japan attacked Pearl Harbor and (afterwards) declared war on the US before the US declared war in response. WW1 it’s harder to point to one thing but the sinking of the Lusitania and the Zimmerman telegram were taught.

castratikron 6y ago
US had declared war on Japan but not Germany. Germany declared war on US a few days later.
- mindcrime 6y ago
  My memory of the details is a little fuzzy, but Great Britain played a role in all that as well. As I recall, they had a mutual defense pact of some sort with the US, to the point that they declared war on Japan before the US did, in response to the Pearl Harbor attacks. The US then declared war on Japan shortly afterwards. The Germans apparently saw all of this as "the writing on the wall" and realized that US entry into the war in Europe was inevitable, and so declared war on the US. Something like that anyway. It's been a while since I read up on all of this.
  - sb057 6y ago
    Japan declared war and invaded Asian British colonies simultaneously with the attack on Pearl Harbor. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japanese_declaration_of_war_on_the_United_States_and_the_British_Empire https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japanese_declaration_of_war_on...
    - mindcrime 6y ago
      OK, I found the bit I was remembering: The UK actually declared war on Japan nine hours before the U.S. did, partially due to Japanese attacks on Malaya, Singapore, and Hong Kong, and partially due to British Prime Minister Winston Churchill's promise to declare war "within the hour" of a Japanese attack on the United States.[1] I had forgotten the part about the attacks on Malaya, etc. [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Attack_on_Pearl_Harbor#Aftermath https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Attack_on_Pearl_Harbor#Afterma...
  - valuearb 6y ago
    Hitler had a mutual defense pact with Japan. But he didn’t have to declare war on the US. It was one of his greatest blunders. Had the US not declare war on Germany, or delayed it for a year or two, Germany might have been able to finish off the Russians and cement their control of Europe.
forgotpwd9000 6y ago
Japan also invaded the phillipines, which was a US territory at the time. FDR was concerned that the American people wouldn't support entering the war if he focused his speech on all the US territories. He specifically mentions Pearl Harbour, since Hawaii was viewed as more apart of the US, also Hawaii had a majority white population. I'm only really scratching the surface, but the US just never likes saying we're an imperialist nation who's colonies were being invaded by Japan. It's still the argument used to deny statehood (or independence) for Puerto Rico
- JackFr 6y ago
  The sentiment for neutrality in the US was dramatically higher than Americans typically care to remember. Months prior to Pearl Harbor US destroyers in the Atlantic were engaging (and in one case being sunk by German U-boats.) That was considered by many to be a reason to get rid of Roosevelt rather than fight with Germany.
vkou 6y ago
But why did Japan attack Pearl Harbor? Because of the American oil embargo against them (Started on August 1st, 1941. 80% of Japan's oil was imported from the US, and as of December 1941, they had three months worth of supplies left.) Why was there an oil embargo? Because FDR wanted them to stop their war in China. (Which started in 1931, by the way.) Pearl Harbor did not just magically appear out of the blue, with no prior context. In both the precipitating event (Peace talks over aggression in China), and the triggering event (Surprise attack on Pearl Harbour) Japan grossly misjudged FDR's willingness to employ the nuclear option. (Pun intended. And yes, I know that it was Truman who ordered the bomb to be dropped.)
- magicsmoke 6y ago
  The oil embargo had much more to do with Japan marching into French Indochina. Like you said, Japan invaded Manchuria in 1931, and the US took no action. In 1937, Japan starts invading the rest of China after the Marco Polo bridge incident, and the US still did nothing even after Japanese bombers hit the USS Panay on the Yangtze river. December 1937, Nanjing Massacre, again no direct action from the US. (But plenty of funding to the ROC and supplies being shipped into China through French Indochina, part of the reason why Japan would later occupy this area) The US didn't start limiting oil and scrap iron shipments to Japan until 1940, after supplying a decade of Japanese military adventures. Why 1940? In 1940, Nazi Germany defeats France and the Vichy French government allows Japan to occupy French Indochina. Suddenly, Japan controls the world's main source of rubber, is within striking distance of the Dutch East Indies and its oil supply which the UK needs to hold out against Germany, and has occupied a western colony.

DiffEq 6y ago

I was taught about all three (Black Tom, Lusitania and Zimmerman)...and there was a rather large contingent of people that wanted to go to war much sooner, just as there was in WW II, but due to the isolationist culture it was only overcome due to these pretty direct attacks.

mzs 6y ago
Same, I think GP should know that curriculum is varied across the US. In my case it was IL circa '90.

NewOrderNow 6y ago

For WWI, the Zimmerman notes were seen as the reason for entry into war in my High School.

Shared404 6y ago
This is what was emphasized at my school as well, with the Lusitania getting honorable mention. This is about 3-4 years ago. EDIT: One other thing of note is that what is taught will vary state by state, as they each set their own curriculum's. I went to high school in Texas.
- NewOrderNow 6y ago
  12 years ago for me. California

peruvian 6y ago

Eh, we took over half of Mexico in the 19th century and made the Philippines and Puerto Rico pseudo-colonies a decade or so before WWI. I would say we didn't want to get into continental European wars, perhaps due to capital/business interests vs. being isolationist.

adventured 6y ago
You make it sound like the US woke up one day, became expansionist and sought to conquer the Philippines or Puerto Rico. The US defeated Spain in a war of Spain's making, and the US then received those territories as a settlement because Spain lost. The US ended colonial dominance of the Philippines and set them free to become an independent nation beginning in 1934. And Puerto Rico? They persistently seek to remain attached to the US. No wonder: their GDP per capita is double that of Chile and triple that of Mexico or Argentina for contrast. Amusingly, it's even higher than Spain's GDP per capita. Similarly the US didn't wake up one day and decide to invade Mexico as an expansionist policy. Mexico started a war with the US and lost, some of their territory was ceded because of their mistake in starting that war. Historically it's a bad idea to start wars with vastly more powerful neighbors, it has commonly ended in losing territory. Despite being a superpower for seven decades, the US has maintained stable borders with its neighbors. It could have spent the last seven decades taking territory in North America, and it has chosen not to behave that way. For example the US fairly splits the Gulf of Mexico with Mexico, politely following reasonable border lines rather than going by who is more powerful; contrast that with what's going on in the South China Sea.
- jcranmer 6y ago
  > The US defeated Spain in a war of Spain's making The Spanish-American War was driven more by the US political intrigue than Spain's. The USS Maine's explosion in Havana harbor (where it had been sent to help protect US interests in the Cuban War of Independence) drove American paranoia about Spanish interference, which led to the US declaring war to deprive Spain of its remaining territories in the Americas. > The US ended colonial dominance of the Philippines The US Pacific detachment happened to be near Manila when war broke out, handily destroyed the Spanish fleet there, and then assisted the ongoing Philippine revolt. And then took the Philippines as a colony, suppressing the revolution they had just been supporting not a few months earlier. They only started granting the Philippines its independence in the 1930s. While American colonization was arguably more benign than other countries, don't kid yourself that it wasn't colonization, and don't kid yourself that it was done in accordance with the wishes of the local populations. > Similarly the US didn't wake up one day and decide to invade Mexico as an expansionist policy. Mexico started a war with the US American settlers started squatting in the region of Texas. When Mexico tried to assert its authority over Texas, the region rebelled and formed an independent country, which Mexico objected to but did accept to some degree as a de facto resolution. However, the Republic of Texas tried to claim as much land as it could--ideally as far as the Pacific Ocean, but usually cited as the Rio Grande border. After the US annexed Texas, it took the Rio Grande as the notional border, and moved its troops into the disputed region to provoke Mexico, taking the territory of Alta California as its prize in the ensuing conflict. Functionally speaking, it's actually not entirely unlike the Russian annexation of the Crimea in modern terms, if the Ukraine were to go to war against Russia's violation of its territory.

unishark 6y ago

The US returned to isolationism after the war. I think the powers of the president are the real driver for such intervention. We always have interests on one side more than the other, and they can't resist meddling. FDR flagrantly took sides in WW2 which probably made getting pulled into that war inevitable.

rmrfstar 6y ago
> which probably made getting pulled into that war inevitable As Japan saw it, the US oil embargo forced Japan to choose between war or a humiliating capitulation to US demands. [1] The major takeaway is: never force a near-peer to choose between humiliation and war. Aristocrats are insulated from the true cost of war, and will always prefer it. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Events_leading_to_the_attack_on_Pearl_Harbor https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Events_leading_to_the_attack_o...
- choward 6y ago
  I thought this was deliberate though. FDR thought entering the war was the right thing to do but knew it wouldn't be liked by the American people. So he provoked Japan to force the US to enter the war.
  - magicsmoke 6y ago
    Jame's Bradley's The China Mirage is a pretty good book on this. FDR didn't want to get into a war with Japan, and in his oil embargoes/financial asset freezes he left loopholes that would allow Japan to continue buying oil while convincing his political base that he was being tough on Japan. The bill was drafted in a way where Japan could submit requests to the state department and treasury to unfreeze enough assets to continue buying oil. However, FDR's assistant secretary of state, Dean Acheson, took a harder line on Japan and when FDR was meeting with Churchill in Newfoundland in August 1941 and Japanese tankers arrived for their preapproved oil shipments, Acheson refused to unfreeze Japanese funds so they could buy the oil and turned FDR's bill into an actual embargo.
- valuearb 6y ago

mindcrime 6y ago

As I am not American, can anyone fill me in on what the high school kids are taught about their entry into WWI and WWII? Hmm... I've spent a modest amount of time studying WWI and WWII history on my own over the years since school, so it's a little hard for me to disambiguate what I remember from way back then, from things I've learnt more recently. But as best as I can recall, what we were taught in high school was basically: (main) reason for entering WWI: • the sinking of the Lusitania (main) reason for entering WWII: • the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor I don't think I learned about the Zimmerman telegram in high-school, or even college. I think I learned about that later. And I had never heard of the Black Tom Explosion until today.

fosco 6y ago
I was taught the main reason for WWI was the Zimmermann Note[ 0] but wikipedia has a pretty good article on this [1]. I wonder if I were school age now if I'd research teacher comments and ask more questions in school... education and being a teacher really is changing. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_entry_into_World_War_I https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_entry_into_World_War_... [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zimmermann_Telegram https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zimmermann_Telegram
jcranmer 6y ago
The main reason for WWI is usually given as German's unrestricted submarine warfare. The sinking of the Lusitania in 1915 (note the year!) prompted US complaints, which caused the Germans to make major changes in their submarine warfare rules. In 1917, Germany changed the rules again to resume unrestricted submarine warfare, and this was the casus belli that Wilson cited. Germany's move to resume unrestricted submarine warfare was a calculated gambit to try to push Britain, and then France, out of the war before the US could join the European theater. As part of this gambit, they tried to enlist Mexico as an ally to distract the US, hence the Zimmerman telegram--which was such a perfect note to enrage the US public that it was actually widely suspected to be a British intelligence plant. And we did cover all of this in both 7th and 11th grade US history in my school district.
- 6y ago

jbay808 6y ago

In Canada we are taught that due to their isolationism, the US had a very small role in WW1, with for example, a late entry and fewer combat casualties than Canada despite a much larger population. We are taught about the Zimmerman telegram and the Lusitania being the main triggers. We are taught that the US remained isolationist after that, being very reluctant to enter WW2 and in the end only joining about 2 years after it "started". For Commonwealth countries, the war began with Germany's invasion of Poland in 1939. For the Czech Republic, it started in 1938. In parts of Asia, the war began even before that, with Japanese aggression. For some countries in the middle east, WW1 never really ended. But we can all agree that the Americans were pretty late to the party and it's weird when you hear them say that "WW2 began toward the end of 1941 with Pearl harbor", at which point much of Europe was already being crushed by the Nazis.

JackFr 6y ago
Between Dunkirk and Barbarossa Britain stood alone against Germany. Churchill’s “Blood, sweat, toil and tears” speech is a speech from a guy who is losing badly and has no illusions about it. The smart money on both sides of the Atlantic said it was hopeless and only an idiot wouldn’t sue for peace. Despite his many shortcomings, Churchill’s leadership was astonishing.
fiftyacorn 6y ago
I would also regard ww1 as a European war in the early stages so no need for the us to enter the war
- jbay808 6y ago
  So would you say that it remained a European war until Canada joined, or until the US joined?
  - fiftyacorn 6y ago
    I would include Canada, Australia and New Zealand as part of European was as part of commonwealth and empire

dysfunction 6y ago

One other factor I was taught (as an American) that I don't see mentioned here was the Russian Revolution. The nominally-democratic provisional government allowed the pro-entry camp to frame the war as democracies vs. authoritarian empires, they could pitch US entry as defending democracy.